The cost of shooting a deer in Michigan would double next year, under Gov. Rick Snyder’s proposed 2014 budget, and more conservation officers would patrol the state’s woods and waterways. Released Thursday, Snyder’s budget calls for $354.3 million for the Department of Natural Resources, which would allow the agency to hire 41 more conservation officers, […]
Michigan Department of Natural Resources
Posted inGuest Commentary
Guest column: Pure Michigan’s natural assets are under assault
By Chris Bunch/ Six Rivers Regional Land Conservancy The Michigan Legislature is taking aim at land conservancies, the Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund, the Department of Natural Resources and land conservation in general. The land conservancies in Southeast Michigan, along with the rest of the natural resource conservation community here, are surprised, frustrated and dismayed. […]
Posted inMichigan Government
Senator: 'A primary objective should be to return land to private ownership'
State Sen. Tom Casperson has become a lightning rod for criticism from environmentalists and some conservation groups. The Escanaba Republican wrote the initial land cap legislation. He advocates for increased logging in state forests. And he has championed legislation that would make it easier for people to build in coastal sand dunes. Casperson’s supporters have […]
Posted inQuality of Life
Policy winds blow through Mich. forests
An hour’s drive south of the Mackinac Bridge, a 67,000-acre patch of state forest known as Chandler Hills offers a stunning glimpse of how Michigan appeared in 1800, before a century of logging left much of the state looking like a moonscape. The hiss of wind coursing through towering hardwoods and the gurgle of a […]
Posted inBusiness Watch
Ruling could bog loggers in paperwork
Margaret Minerick’s family has survived many challenges over the past four decades as they built a large and successful timber business in the Upper Peninsula community of Sagola. Today, Minerick Logging and its sister company, Sagola Hardwoods, employ more than 100 workers in the western U.P. But Minerick, who is president of Sagola Hardwoods, fears […]